0403 am 'Get This' news

program date:

Thu, 04/03/2008

Get This:Karl Rove has been “terrified” of Barbara Bush longer than you…

Chris Andreae

04/03/08

Voted Off The Island:Multnomah County Chairman Ted Wheeler’s staff quietly laid off the Assistant Director of the county’s Elections Division and then shoved the Director out right after he complained.Does this smell funny to you?On the eve of a money-shot primary?Record turnout expected?

Lab Rats:The lab that tests drinking water for much of this part of the world, got its certificate yanked.But just because the water is crawling with bugs, no reason to panic, says the Oregon Public Health Division.Coffey labs, however might consider panicking now that the company is for all intents and purposes shit out of business. (Now if the FAA was inspecting the water, none of this would ever have surfaced…)

Scorched Earth:Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, with your captain, Andy Stahl is lighting a fire under the Forest Service, serving up yet another lawsuit filed in Missoula, Montana yesterday.They plan is to keep hitting them where it hurts (That would be in the Missoula, I guess…) for dumping millions of gallons of chemicals on fires – killing off to the point of extinction a wide range of already endangered plants and animals, especially fish.The idea is to put the fires out so that the logging rights can be sold off to private industry.So if you have ever wanted to say, ‘I love you’ to a salmon, better do it now…

Spawn of Satan::The House Natural Resources Committee approved a new Copper Salmon Wilderness.Great!The idea is to protect forest and streams at the headwaters of the Elk River near Port Orford.This is good PR for the politicos as they swim upstream towards voters come election time…But unless and until the entire Cascade region from Alaska to Mexico and inland as far as the Rockies is protected from human depredations, then it’s time to make your peace with the fish…Piece of fish, anyone?

Nothing to Luge:Oregon’s economy is off on a fast downhill run…And that isn’t the Olympic torch at the end of the slide. (Not to mention the hideous drop off the Edge of the World;“There be monsters heare.”)

The Nalley company which owns a pickle processing plant in Portland is outsourcing its packing operation to India.Which means “The great taste of the Northwest”is now “The great taste of Uttar Pradesh”Growers in the cooperative that supplied the plant were notified in February andthey negotiated a ‘settlement’.But most of the 14 Skagit Valley farmers would rather be growing crops…

Got Scabs:Vietnamese Nike factory workers were out on strike - but they’ll be back at work in a few days – just as soon as tempers cool a little.After the new contract was signed,sealed and delivered there was a minor altercation when workers who didn’t like the deal they were “offered” got in a brawl with the rest of the returning indentured servants.What do they want?A 20 percent wage increase.What did they get?A ten cent raise.What are they making on average?$59 dollars a month.Not even close to enough money to buy a pair of Nikes.(And you shouldn’t either…)

Bush went to the NATO Summit in Romania - despite the fact that it was no doubt only recently that cautious aides explained to the prez what NATO stands for.And I can’t imagine at this late stage in the game that anyone even bothers to tell Bush where he is going and why it is important.They just sedate him, load him on the plane and hope for the best…Putting a bag over his head would be unnecessary given the general level of curiosity Bush has consistently displayed.

An ad came out in four newspapers today (The New York Sun, The Washington Times, Politico and Roll Call – which is perhaps all you really need to know…).And what a piece of work this scurrilous page out of fish wrapping history isElie Wiesel (Must be Alzheimer’s, it’s the only explanation), Harvard’s Gift to Zionism, Alan Dershowitz and former CIA Director, James Woolsey all signed on to an ugly fuckwit piece of bitchery demanding the US boycott the Durban II World Conference Against Racism.Last time, the US and Israel walled out when the topic of their war crimes against the Palestinian people was broached.Truth hurts but not nearly so much as being rendered refugees in your own land.(And I still say that if America is such a Good Friend to Israel, then move it to Texas.They’ll never notice.Israel is already the unofficial 51st State…

The Pentagon is using the FBI to spy on Americans.(What, the Pentagon is preparing to attack us? I thought we were supposed to be attacking Iran, Cuba, something like that…)

Mommie Dearest:Karl Rove has this to say about George’s Dear Old Mum, says he “lived in fear” of Barbara Bush for 37 years, finding her scary.

No Massage This Time:German Chancellor Angela Merkel won’t give in to little George’s petulant demands that Ukraine and Georgia be admitted to NATO.Merkel appeared clearly furious in a restrained, Teutonic way.European leaders did give the American president a few harmless toys to play with until they slip the bib on and cart him off the condo in Dubai.But at least this time around, the Leader of the Free World managed to keep his mits off Merkel.

The farmers strike in Argentina is over.

The Zimbabwe elections are over.Looks like Mugabe is out.He’s got three choices:He can gracefully step down, leaving his once-thriving nation in ruins.Choice number two:He could stay in the race and suffer the sturm und drang of a run-off.Or – best of all – He could join Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket as Vice President in a grand Thug-Fest.

And finally, the members of the Russian fundamentalist ‘Doomsday’ sect are being lured out the ice cave where they had gone to await the Apocalypse (Coming soon to an ice cave near you!) . In an ironic twist of fate, the poor bastards will probably emerge just as the US takes out Iran and half of Russia in a thermonuclear Armageddon.So it goes…